


a life no longer your own

by sevenfoxes



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 12:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfoxes/pseuds/sevenfoxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Intuitively, he knows he should find it strange that Sarah looks like the girl he's spent the last few years monitoring, the girl whose bed he shared and whose face he lied to day after day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a life no longer your own

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this tumblr post](http://sevensneakyfoxes.tumblr.com/post/52029821834/intuitively-he-knows-he-should-find-it-strange).

Intuitively, he knows he should find it strange that Sarah looks like the girl he's spent the last few years monitoring, the girl whose bed he shared and whose face he lied to day after day. Whose secrets he had shared with Olivier and the Neolutionists. He had cared for Beth, but he had never loved her, not the way she desperately wanted to be loved by him. To be loved by anyone.

The truth is that Paul never learned to love anyone that wanted it from him. Maybe that is why he cares so much for Sarah - because she is the only woman he has known who wants nothing from him, whose loyalty is questionable, that made it abundantly clear that she could leave him without a second thought.

(Only she didn't. She didn't. When he told her to run, told her to leave him behind, she didn't.)

Sarah looks like Beth. Has the same nose and the same mouth, makes the same half-startled noise when he puts his teeth against the sharp jut of her collarbone and bites down. But they're not the same girl. When he looks at Sarah, he doesn't see Beth. Despite their similarities, they have different eyes. Different souls.

Beth had deserved better. Sarah deserves better. Better than a fucked up ex-military washout with a half-dozen dead marines on his hands. But Paul has always been selfish, and as much he wants to walk away, he also wants to protect Sarah. To have her.

He wants to tell her that he knows what it's like to live with a blade dangling over your throat, to feel like your life is no longer your own.

Instead he steps forward and presses the button for 34.


End file.
